Which Crypto Data APIs Have an MCP Server?
If you are looking for an MCP server for crypto market data, the honest answer in October 2026 is: a few official ones, a lot of community wrappers, and a wide gap between "returns a price" and "returns something an agent can act on". The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is the open standard that lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other clients call external tools, and the crypto servers built on it range from a single Fear & Greed lookup to full exchange trading.
This directory lists the servers we could verify from their own documentation or repositories, states what each tool returns, and notes transport (local stdio versus remote HTTP) because that decides how you connect. Claims about third-party servers are dated "as of October 2026" and kept to what their own pages say. Check each server's tools/list response before you rely on it; that is the authoritative catalog, not a directory page.
The Directory (as of October 2026)
| Server | Who runs it | Transport | What the tools return |
|---|---|---|---|
Bybit official MCPgithub.com/bybit-exchange/trading-mcp, npm bybit-official-trading-server | Bybit (announced 22 April 2026) | Local package | Market data module: tickers, candlestick aggregations, order-book snapshots, fee schedules. Trading and account modules: balances, open positions, order placement. One exchange. |
Bitquery MCPmcp.bitquery.io | Bitquery | Remote, Streamable HTTP, OAuth 2.1 browser sign-in | On-chain and DEX data across 40+ chains: token prices, OHLCV, DEX trades and pairs, trending tokens, trader profiles and positions; raw query access on paid plans. |
CoinPaprika / DexPaprika MCPcoinpaprika/dexpaprika-mcp | CoinPaprika (listed as official) | Local stdio | DEX market data from the DexPaprika API. We could not confirm the tool list from the search results, so read its README. |
CCXT MCP (official)npx -y ccxt-mcp | CCXT project | Local stdio | Market data for 100+ exchanges through the CCXT unified API; balances and trading only when explicitly enabled. Your exchange keys stay on your machine. |
mcp-server-ccxt (community)doggybee/mcp-server-ccxt | Community | stdio and Streamable HTTP | 20+ exchanges, spot, futures and swap markets, with caching and rate limiting. A directory listing counts 24 tools. |
crypto-feargreed-mcpkukapay/crypto-feargreed-mcp | Community (MIT) | Local Python | The alternative.me Fear & Greed Index: latest value and classification, N days of history, and a trend summary. One indicator, done cleanly. |
CryptoDataAPI MCPhttps://cryptodataapi.com/mcp | CryptoDataAPI | Remote, Streamable HTTP; browser sign-in or X-API-Key header | 26 tools over a 180+ endpoint REST API: regime nowcasts, dealer gamma, whale positioning, liquidations, funding, OI, ETF flows, Fear & Greed, coin profiles, order books, plus a generic query_api for any REST path. |
Community Bybit wrappers also exist on the MCP directories and are easy to confuse with the official release. The official one is the bybit-exchange GitHub organisation; review the code before you connect anything else that can place orders.
Exchange Mirrors vs a Decision Layer
The servers above split into two kinds, and the split matters more than the tool count.
- Exchange mirrors (Bybit, CCXT, the DEX servers) expose the venue's own API one tool per endpoint. The agent gets a ticker, a candle array or an order book and must compute everything else itself. They are the right choice when the agent also trades there and you want one credential.
- Single-indicator servers (Fear & Greed) answer exactly one question. Cheap to run, nothing to misread.
- A decision layer returns already-computed state: which regime the market is in, where dealer liquidation clusters sit, whether whales are net long. The agent spends its context on the decision, not on reimplementing a classifier from raw bars.
A practical test: ask the server "are Hyperliquid whales net long or short right now?". An exchange mirror cannot answer, because that requires reading thousands of accounts. A decision-layer tool returns a field.
What the CryptoDataAPI MCP Tools Return
The server at https://cryptodataapi.com/mcp exposes these 26 tools. Names are exact, taken from the server code.
- Onboarding:
create_free_api_key(mints a key from an email; the confirmation link raises the daily limit to 1,000 and grants a 24h Pro trial),check_key_status,resend_verification_email,list_capabilities. - Market state:
get_market_health,get_market_regime(the HMM nowcast,horizondefault 24h),get_cycle_regime(the committed long-horizon regime),get_daily_snapshot,get_macro,get_fear_greed. - Derivatives and positioning:
get_funding_rates,get_open_interest,get_liquidations,get_positioning,get_gamma_exposure,get_whale_activity,get_order_book,get_hyperliquid_prices. - Coins and flows:
get_price,get_coin_profile,search_coins,get_top_coins,get_stablecoins,get_etf_flows,get_exchange_links. - Escape hatch:
query_api(path, params)calls any/api/v1/*path, so the 180+ REST endpoints are reachable without a dedicated tool each.
The Pro-tier tools (get_market_regime, get_gamma_exposure, get_whale_activity, get_positioning) return a 403 on a free key that carries the upgrade path, so the agent learns what it needs rather than failing silently. Every tool's REST twin is documented on /docs and in /llms-full.txt.
How Do I Connect a Crypto Data MCP Server to Claude Code?
For ours, one line with no key. The first tool call opens a browser sign-in:
claude mcp add --transport http cryptodataapi https://cryptodataapi.com/mcpFor a headless agent that already holds a key, pass it as a header and expand it from the environment at connect time, so the secret never appears in a chat transcript:
export CRYPTODATA_API_KEY=cdk_live_your_key
claude mcp add --transport http cryptodataapi https://cryptodataapi.com/mcp \
--header 'X-API-Key: ${CRYPTODATA_API_KEY}'The server is also listed in the official MCP registry as com.cryptodataapi/mcp. For the local servers in the table, the pattern is the stdio form, for example claude mcp add ccxt -- npx -y ccxt-mcp for the official CCXT server; Bitquery and Bybit publish their own client instructions.
Every MCP tool here is a thin wrapper on a REST endpoint, so anything you can do over MCP you can also do with a plain request. The regime tool, for instance, is:
curl -H "X-API-Key: cdk_live_your_key" \
"https://cryptodataapi.com/api/v1/quant/market"{
"regime": {"label": "squeeze", "id": 5, "confidence": 0.975},
"probabilities": {"...": "directional, volatility, funding and liquidation-risk buckets"}
}That example is trimmed; the full shape is on the docs page. The MCP walkthrough covers a full agent session, and MCP vs candle APIs compares what an agent gets from each kind.
Choosing Between Them
- You trade on one CEX and want one credential: that exchange's official server (Bybit) or the official CCXT server with trading explicitly enabled. Keep the key local.
- You need on-chain and DEX data across chains: Bitquery's remote server, with the paid tier if you want raw queries.
- You need one sentiment number: the Fear & Greed server, or
get_fear_greedhere, which also averages in a second index. - You need Hyperliquid perps, derivatives positioning and regime state without building the classifiers: ours. It does not place orders; it is read-only by design.
- You are not sure yet: a remote Streamable HTTP server costs nothing to try and nothing to uninstall. Local stdio servers need Node or Python on the agent's host.
When to Use an MCP Server (and When Plain REST Is Better)
MCP is the right fit when a human or an agent is exploring: the tool list is self-describing, the model picks the call, and a sign-in flow replaces key management. It is the wrong fit for a production loop that makes the same call every bar. There, the MCP round trip and the tool-selection step add latency and tokens for no benefit; call the REST endpoint directly with a key and cache the response.
Limits to be honest about on our side:
- Rate limits apply per key through MCP exactly as over REST: 10 requests a minute on a free key, 30 on Pro, 120 on Pro Plus.
- The heavy
/backtesting/*history routes are reachable throughquery_apibut are built for paging over REST withAccept-Encoding: gzip. Do not pull a month of 1m bars through a chat tool. - Third-party entries above describe what each project's own pages said in October 2026. Servers change; verify the live tool list.
Pricing for the paid tiers is on /pricing, and the agent-specific onboarding path is on /ai-agents.
Frequently asked questions
Does Bybit have an official MCP server?
Yes. Bybit announced its official MCP on 22 April 2026, published at github.com/bybit-exchange/trading-mcp with an npm package named bybit-official-trading-server. It covers market data, trading and account tools for Bybit only.
How do I add the CryptoDataAPI MCP server to Claude Code?
Run claude mcp add --transport http cryptodataapi https://cryptodataapi.com/mcp. No key is needed; the first tool call opens a browser sign-in. A headless agent can pass an X-API-Key header instead.
Which crypto MCP servers are remote rather than local?
As of October 2026, Bitquery (mcp.bitquery.io) and CryptoDataAPI (cryptodataapi.com/mcp) run as remote Streamable HTTP servers. Bybit's official server, the CCXT servers and the Fear & Greed server run locally over stdio.
What tools does the CryptoDataAPI MCP server expose?
26 tools, including create_free_api_key, get_market_regime, get_gamma_exposure, get_whale_activity, get_positioning, get_liquidations, get_funding_rates, get_open_interest, get_etf_flows, get_fear_greed, get_order_book and a generic query_api for any REST path.
Can an MCP server place trades on Hyperliquid?
The CryptoDataAPI server is read-only. The official CCXT server and Bybit's server can trade when trading is explicitly enabled, with the exchange keys held locally.
